Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced today that the health reform bill he will bring to the Senate floor will have a public option, but it will include the provision that individual states could opt out if they want to.
My guess is that the only reason Reid is now for the public option is because he knows what everyone else knows; that 6 in 10 Americans are in favor of the public option.
Only a few months ago Reid said he was only for the public option if it was run not by the government, but by a private entity.
As I’ve blogged before, I’m really curious to see how the whole opt out thing would work. Not that I’m so curious that I would want to see a Republican governor deny the people in his or her state the ability to have access to quality and affordable health care.
I’m not that curious.
I imagine it would be a real wedge issue during gubernatorial elections. Living here in Maryland, I am blessed with seeing political commercials from candidates not only here in Maryland, but in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia too. Right now there’s a heated campaign going on in Virginia for governor. The Democrat is getting attacked because when he says he wont raise taxes, it somehow secretly means he will raise taxes. The Republican is getting attacked because he once wrote that working women were a detriment the American family and that birth control should be illegal.
Imagine the attack ads against Republican candidates for governor when voters see commercials warning them that a vote for the Republican means they will lose their public option health insurance.
Who knows, maybe that’s the point.
